Our Favorite Weekend Dinner

Weekends are the best, am I right? I’m lucky enough to LOVE my job, so it doesn’t stress me out that I work Monday through Friday- but weekends are still something to look forward to.

We are creatures of habit, and our routine is very predictable. We always grocery shop for the week on the weekend, and I prep all of the food we’ll eat in the upcoming week. Once the work is done, we like to pack up and spend a few hours at the pool. On Saturdays, when we get home, we like to grill a steak, and have an amazing dinner!

Ribeye is our favorite steak since we went low carb high fat. Mark has found a local butcher who has really good meat! (If you didn’t say “That’s what she said”, we can’t hang out…) Every few weeks, we’ll go get a bunch of ribeyes, and portion them into packs of 2 to freeze. 2 ribeyes are plenty for the two of us and Nicholas, and usually leaves a bit leftover for someone to have the next day!

If you want to try our weekend dinner, grab yourself some ribeye and grill it up, then serve it with these delicious Herbed Mushrooms and my AMAZING cauliflower mash. You can also add a salad or some roasted veggies. I challenge anyone who says changing to a low carb lifestyle leads to deprivation!

Ketogenic Herbed Mushrooms

16 ounces mushrooms, cleaned & sliced

1/4 cup butter

1/8 cup fresh thyme leaves

3 cloves fresh garlic, crushed

zest of 1 lemon

2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice

Salt, pepper, garlic powder to taste (Salt carefully. This recipe reduces quite a bit, and the butter provides some salt which intensifies as it reduces)

Melt butter in a medium sized sautee pan over medium heat. Add thyme & garlic. Sautee for a minute or two, then add the rest of the ingredients. Toss to coat. Reduce heat to low & cover pan. Allow to cook until mushrooms have softened, then remove cover. Continue cooking on low heat, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid has reduced. Enjoy as a side dish or over steak.

Steam the cauliflower in the microwave until tender. I use the packages that can be steamed right in the bag. meanwhile, add the cream cheese, butter, all but 1 cup of the cheddar cheese, the chives, and seasonings to the bottom of a large bow, (I use my KitchenAid stand mixer.) When the cauliflower is steamed, add it on top of the other ingredients, and allow it to sit for a few minutes so that the heat of the cauliflower softens the rest of the ingredients. Begin to mix it at low speed to combine everything, then increase the speed a bit to help mash the cauliflower up a bit more and to be sure that everything is well combined. When everything is combined, pour into a greased baking dish and top with reserved cheddar cheese. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, then enjoy!

The secret is the cream cheese! Cauliflower has a different, wetter consistency than potatoes, so when I was playing around with cauliflower mash recipes, I found that it was always so loose and watery when I used sour cream. The cream cheese has a firmer consistency and helps prevent runny cauliflower mash!

Get creative with this recipe! Add bacon, different cheeses, different herbs. We don’t even miss potatoes!